Hiring a Pakistan Dev Team: Questions for UK Founders

By Mudabbir Hasan, Co-founder · Published 2026-09-11 · Last updated 2026-09-11

Hiring a Pakistan software team can work well if you settle five things in writing before you start: guaranteed hours of overlap with your day, a signed assignment of code ownership to you, repository and cloud access from day one, a review process for quality, and a clear plan for who handles your data. Under UK law, paying for software does not by itself make you its owner.

Why read advice from both sides?

The two vendor guides we read lean opposite ways. Mecanik.dev is a London development firm, and it argues that a UK team removes friction from time zone, language and legal culture. Timeline Digital is based in Islamabad, and it explains how to run delivery from Pakistan. Each sells the option it describes. We have offices in both Glasgow and Lahore, so we are not neutral either. The useful parts are where they agree.

How much does the time zone matter?

Pakistan keeps Pakistan Standard Time, which is five hours ahead of the UK in winter and four hours ahead when the UK is on summer time, so confirm the overlap for your own months. Timeline Digital's advice is to treat remote work as remote work and not as an office: write a guaranteed overlap of three to four hours into the contract, and log decisions in tickets so nobody waits for an answer. Mecanik says offshore work needs heavier project management than a same-timezone team, which is a fair cost to price in.

Time zone arithmetic

UTC+5
Pakistan, all year
UTC+0 / +1
UK, winter and summer
5 h / 4 h
Gap in winter / UK summer time
3–4 h
Overlap to write into the contract

Overlap advice: Timeline Digital.

Who owns the code?

Not you, by default. GOV.UK's guidance says the first legal owner of copyright is the person or organisation that created the work and not the commissioner, unless you agree otherwise in writing. Contractors generally keep their copyright unless the contract provides differently. Where a contract is silent, a court may find an implied licence, which can leave you with only a limited non-exclusive licence.

So the contract needs a written assignment. Timeline Digital advises pairing a work-for-hire clause with an explicit IP assignment that transfers on full payment, and Mecanik says you should own everything built for you once payment is complete, including the third-party components you rely on. This is general information, not legal advice. Have a UK solicitor review the assignment before you sign.

Code ownership under UK law

1
The creator owns the copyright by default
Not the person who paid (GOV.UK).
2
A contractor keeps it unless the contract says otherwise
3
A silent contract may give only a limited licence
4
Fix: a written assignment, on full payment
5
A UK solicitor reviews the clause

What should you get in writing besides ownership?

Repository access from day one, and cloud accounts held in your name. Mecanik asks for repository access from the start, and Timeline Digital asks for continuous access plus accounts in the client's name.
A signed functional specification before coding begins, with payments tied to working software and an acceptance test before the final payment. Both guides recommend milestone payments.
A quality process: Timeline Digital's list is mandatory pull request review by a second engineer, agreed test and linting thresholds, and a senior reviewer who did not write the code.
A discovery phase. Mecanik's view is that a fixed quote without one is making up a number.
Weekly demos of working software, so problems surface in days and not at the end.

In writing before you start

Guaranteed hours of overlap
A signed assignment of code ownership
Repository and cloud accounts in your name
Second-engineer review on every change
Where your data lives and who can access it

What about data protection?

Mecanik states that UK data protection requirements apply by default to a UK business, and says to ask where the data is stored, who can access it and what the retention policy is. Treat that as a minimum list of questions for any supplier, wherever they are based.

How do you check the team is real?

Mecanik's advice is to ask for live production URLs and clients you can contact, not portfolio screenshots, and to be wary of junior-heavy teams. Ask the same of us. Our case pages link to live products where one exists, and some of our work is confidential and says so, which is weaker evidence than something you can open yourself.

Read: Choosing a software partner, checks you can verify

What should you ask any Pakistan-based supplier?

Which hours will the team be online, in writing, with the UK overlap named?
Who will work on my code, do you subcontract, and can I meet them on video?
Who holds the repository and cloud accounts, and could another team take over without you?
How are change requests priced and approved?
Where is my data stored and who can access it?

We have not published a standard overlap window or contract terms on this site, so ask us for ours in writing, the same as you would anyone else.

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